The fourth mistake you're making that is keeping you bored at work and trapped by the corporate cage? You are trapped by your Contexts.
What's a Context?
I see this as one of the most prevalent and least obvious barriers to anyone's success. The context that you are living within prevents you from seeing any other possible ways of living. For you, your context is Reality. There is nothing else.The simple realization that there is another way to look at life can be mind blowing.
But as we start to see our Contexts it becomes a bit of a journey down the rabbit hole because throughout our lives we have developed so many contexts... and when we chip away at our contexts, we are chipping away at our Reality.
First, what do I mean by context? Oxford Dictionary defines context as:
The idea can be extended to our minds: when an event occurs, the story that we have in our minds or the circumstances we are living in, creates context for the event. And our internal context gives meaning to the event. Have you ever been to a meeting with five different people and something happens in the meeting and the five participants have five different interpretations of what happened in the meeting? The different interpretations are a result of the different contexts the five different people have.
- The parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning.
- The circumstances relevant to something under consideration.
Simply put, context is the story, framework, paradigm, filter or colored lens through which you view the world. In the expression "see the world through rose-colored glasses", the rose-colored glasses are an example of a context. If you literally put a pair of rose-colored glasses, everything in the world takes on a pink hue. In reality, the world is still the same, vibrant and multicolored world, but from your perspective, everything looks pink. There are many contexts that are common to humans:
good & bad;
valuable & not valuable;
fair & not fair;
domination & submission, and
There is a way that things should be. And when they are that way, things are right. When they're not that way, there's something wrong with me (the interpreter of events), with them (other people), or with it (anything in the world).
Why should I care about Contexts?
There is nothing 'wrong' about a context--it either enables you to achieve what you want or it does not. But it is important to recognize that contexts are decisive. Contexts limit the possibilities for action. If it is my context that cats should be locked indoors at all times, this forever defines what I will be able to do and how I will interact with my cat, my guests and myself. My context limits the possibilities for the actions I (and my cat) can take. I can never play with the cat outdoors. I can never hold the door open when the cat is near it. I can never have windows wide open.This is all fine and good, but what if my parents gave me the context that cats must stay indoors at all times. What if I was never even aware that there was another way for cats and humans to interact? My choices and possibilities have been limited and I didn't even know it!
Whether we are aware of it or not, we have a context for everything in life. And we did not choose the majority of the contexts we have in our minds. The consequences for this can be disastrous.
For example, what is your context around money? Is that context helping you where you want to get to in life? One exercise you can conduct is as follows:
- Write down all the judgments, negative facts, interpretations, and truths about the topic.
- Then list the strategies you use to overcome each item.
1. money is evil, it's unfair (some have too much, others have too little), it's painful and deprives people of things they need/want, it's an unfair measure of success...
2. I avoid making lots of it; I avoid asking for the amount of money I want or think I'm worth; I give away services for free; I speak about all the other great things I do in my life that don't involve money.
The question I need to ask myself is: does this context around money help me in my life? What does this context make impossible in my life? Obviously this kind of a context that I have about money is not going make it very easy for me to become wealthy! So since my context doesn't help, what different view would help me in my life?
How do I reveal my Contexts?
Contexts are tricky beasts because they are real to us. The context I have around money is my reality. I'm going to assert that a millionaire's context around money is quite different. The question then becomes: how do I reveal my contexts?One way I found is to live in a foreign country. My time living in China taught me a lot about my own contexts and the contexts I was given by my western culture. While living in Asia, I saw a different way to approach things. And some ways I found to be more useful in my life. The most empowering result of being aware of my own contexts was Choice -- my choices were expand.
Another great way is to work with a therapist, life coach or other healer. Why? Because they can stand outside of you and see the reality that you're creating for yourself when you cannot.
Finally, through reading this article, I hope that I have provoked you to start asking yourself the question: what context am I in at the moment? Am I playing in a right/wrong context? Awareness is the first step to freeing yourself from automatic and unhelpful contexts.
From the series:
- Massive Mistakes Professional Women Make that Keep them Feeling Bored at Work and Trapped by the Corporate Cage
- The First Mistake: You don't invest in yourself.
- The Second mistake you're making: you isolate yourself...
- The Third Mistake...
- The Fourth Mistake...
